Treemageddon

The alarm went off at 5:41AM this morning. We didn't set the alarm but it went off nonetheless. 

The alarm shocked us out of a restful slumber to sitting straight up in bed and saying, "What the Hell was that!?"

It was a very loud noise that came from outside our bedroom window. I went to the window and saw that a sizable portion of the fifty foot tree in the back of the house had peeled away from itself and settled into the yard. It took down the power line to the Carriage House and screwed up some of the Security Cameras, but I don't ever talk about those here so...never mind.

So it is not hard to guess what I was going to be doing when I got home from work. I got out my clippers and my cheesy little electric chain saw and I went to work.

Just as I was heading out to begin my toil, my friend Ron called and said he has some time to kill and was coming over to help. I told him I welcomed his help and went to town with my nippers.

In no time I had cut a little path through to the backyard and when Ron arrived, he grabbed the cheesy little electric chain saw and made short work of that forest. 

Once he removed some of the larger branches, the end still attached up in the tree started to move and we realized it was going to be coming down. And come down it did. It hit hard! That would have easily crushed a ladder, squirrel or me.

It is more or less cleaned up although I have a lot more tidying up to do.

Horrible Poster Man

I was checking the posts for the last month and realized I haven't posted shit. I have done a terrible job of keeping things up to date. I have meant to post lots o times. I just haven't followed through.

Well, let's rectify that.

On top of working on the Living Room, which we really haven't been doing, we have lots of little projects going on.

I stopped watering the side yard a while back and now that the grass is properly brown, I started roto-tilling the area. It has turned into a major nightmare due to something I have brought up before.

There is not a square foot of dirt on our little chunk of heaven that I can put a shovel to and not hit a root. I'm not sure if I just created a double or triple negative in that sentence so let me re-state it. We have roots! They are everywhere and they are prodigious.

I'm about one third of the way through the whole grassy area and that has taken me four hours. 

You can see by the pictures that the roots are just big horizontal trees that grow underground.

I'm looking forward to completing this soon and reseeding. It seems a long way off.

Four Thousand Dollar Day

It's muy bueno excitement around the hacienda today as we are having a new fireplace insert inserted into the fireplace. I have taken the day off work in order to be here and get in the way...an essential element of any installation by professionals.

Since we have lived here, we have occasionally had fires burning in the old fireplace but the old fireplace is so inefficient that it did not result in extra heat in the house. In fact, I considered the fireplace to be an open window. It had no damper and no cap. The only thing that prevented cold air from blowing past it and into the living room was the flimsy glass doors loosely wired to the fire box.

It is my hope that today, we are sealing an open window...and getting a reasonable return on heat when we burn.

We spent some time last night removing the glass doors and the old log rack and cleaning out the fire box. We then tried to clean up the tile as best we could.

So they will be placing an efficient insert into our fire box hole and making us an official wood burning household.

The other part of the install is a chimney liner. We had a guy come last year to sweep the chimney and upon his initial inspection, he told us not to burn until we had a chimney liner. The old masonry was deteriorated to such an extent as to make burning a fire a potential hazard.

It is 10:24 right now and Travis and the other guy of Accent Pool &  Spa have just arrived and to start their install. I shall report their progress as they progress with their progressions.

11:45AM: As with everything with this house, it never goes according to plan. If one has a plan, it should include an accordion built into the plan for when is goes un-accordionly.

Our fire box requires some structural masonry work that will delay the installation by a week. There is a curve to the back wall of the firebox (as shown in the picture above) that needs to be cut out. Otherwise, the insert will not fit. That will require a metal plate to be installed in place of the removed bricks to return the structural integrity. That metal plate must be manufactured to the specifications of our little space, which means they will be back next week. 

And so, I have the rest of the day to myself. I have things to do and so, I shall go do them.

DAMN YOU, FLARED CHIMNEY!!!

Here's how it looked after the first round of Crown Molding.

Here is what we ended up with after our fix today.

I can live with this. It is by no means perfect. It's not even in the same dictionary as "perfect". But we can make this work and look good.

We have closed up the gap by adding an extra piece of molding  below the crown. It allowed us to hide the imperfections and it adds a bit more substance to the overall look of the crown.

The corners are a bit rough but even here in the after picture, you can see it looks much better.

All in all, we are pleased! The crown molding portion of the living room is almost complete and now it is time to move on the the wood.....and the radiator.....and the wall papering.....and the chair rail.....check back in August.

Gardeners Corner

We have determined that our house is where plants go to die.

The hydrangea's we planted back on Memorial Day weekend are not looking well. It's not from lack of watering and I can't believe it's from too much watering.

I think one of the things we need to do next Spring is rototill some compost into this dirt. It turns rock hard once it settles and dries.

Susan bought a bunch a flowers last weekend and finally got them all into the ground last night. It was the first chance we've had as we have been painting skywalks all week.

The areas I seeded with grass are coming in nicely. Compare this picture with the one from the May 30th post and the transformation is semi-dramatic.

Editors Note: We have since found out that we are over watering the hydrangea's. We have knocked that off.

Different Forms of Accomplishment

Accomplishment was my middle name yesterday as I tore around the yard and accomplishmentized all over the place.

I have completed Phase One of my Arbor Project. I have installed caps over all the lengths of beams that form the arbor over the deck. The next phase is to place the caps over the cross beams at the end of the arbor. And I need to get it done before the hops gets any larger.











Then I got to cleaning the yard and couldn't stop. That little area at the end of the Carraige House and next to Ted's garage has been an eye sore for many years. I got to work cutting up the boards that have been rotting on the ground. Then I pulled out the roto-tiller and really did some damage. I cleaned it up enough that Susan and I are now in talks about laying down some sort of patio in the area. We are discussing cement, paver bricks and large pieces of slate.

I had a piano lesson at 1:30 and barely made it on time due to my inability to stop. I just kept wanting to do one more thing. That was my last piano lesson for the summer as I have too much going on to stop in the middle of the day and take a lesson.

The perfect end to a perfect day of accomplimentation is the tradition Pit Fire of Accomplishment.

It was ferocious and I used up a lot of the wood that I cleaned up from the yard. Fret not...there is still plenty of house to burn.

Today has turned into a bust in relation to Accomplimentoring. We went to church and then charged home to plant a bunch of flowers Susan bought Saturday. We planted one side of the front yard garden.

Then we went to a Graduation Party for my friend Lee's son. It was a grand event at the Spokane Club with beer and wine and pop for the graduates. There was great food as well. 

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long due to a prior commitment we made with our church. We volunteered to answer pledge calls at the local PBS TV station. That ate up four hours of our time on an otherwise beautiful Sunday. 

We're working on figuring out how to get the deduction.

The Problem of the Flair

It is another day of toil for the Living Room and to highlight that fact, displayed above is my compressor and my 100 year old custom needlepoint workbench upon which my air nailer rests. As soon as I get my Fine China Plate Hammer Rest and my taffeta doily staining pads, I'll be all set to go.

Today, we (and when I say "we", I mean Phil) must confront the most tedious part of the crown molding project. The Chimney Outcropping.

This area flares at the top as one may note from the photograph. The crown molding is designed to adhere to two flat surfaces. I'm not sure how we (Phil) are going to accomplish this. I presume it will require some filing, sanding, sawing of the bottom portion of the molding in order to allow it to rest properly into the flare.

Later that Same Day: It is evening now and day is done. So is the crown molding. Although, as with everything we do with this project, it did not go easily.

Filing, sanding and/or sawing did not solve the problem of the flair. It turned out that the molding would be too thin were the dentil features are.

We have a problem with squareness! It's a 100 year old house and it has settled somewhat over the hun. Plus, we have that damn flare you see above on the chimney portion of the walls. 

We are going to progress to another thin line of molding to be placed below the crown. I'm hoping that another strip of molding will help to hide that gap around the fireplace. Stand by for news as it happens.

At this point, I will say that I am not exactly happy with this molding we purchased on-line. You will notice from the picture above that we used pre-fabricated inside and outside corners. They do not match up well with the contours of the molding. 

I'm sure this will all look better once it is painted. That will help to hide some of the imperfections and the intense sanding I intend to do to make things match.

Four Project Saturday

I woke up around 3 to the sound of someone shouting outside. I think it was coming from the neighbors yard across the alley from us. There was definitely a party going on when we shut down our pit fire around 11.

It was to be a busy day and that meant getting up and getting right to it. Whatever it was, we were to it.

Project Number Most Important was getting up the crown molding in the Living Room.

It is not complete but what is up looks good.

While Phil worked on the crown molding, I went to work to restore workability to our front window. The house is loaded with all the old style windows that employ weights hidden within the sill. The weights add ease of opening to the heavy windows. As with many of these old style windows, the weights have long since ceased to work. The ropes have broken and the weights fall uselessly into the abyss.

I have recovered the weights and am attempting to reattach them.

The weights in the front window have to be 50 pounds each. They may be more. I suppose I should have weighed them. I am attaching a new length of rope, which I estimate to be about 36 inches.

I got them in and Phil helped me get them attached to the window. The picture above shows the 80 pound weight sitting quietly in its place gaining weight. 

The problem is the window barely opens. I new it was not going to open completely but I was hoping for a nice opening to allow a breeze. I'm going to shorten the length of my ropes and hope I get a bit more breeze space.

While all this was going on, Susan was busy planting more flora in the front garden. It's really taking shape out there. I got some peet moss down over the grass seed in hopes of protecting it from birds and having something moist over the top.

I also got a good start on capping the arbors on the deck. Above is a nice before and after shot. I'll be installing these over the next several days. I think I got four up today.

You must excuse me now as I have to go rest.

Sowing My Wild Oats

We managed to apply one more coat of paint to the ceiling on Tuesday night and since that used up the rest of the paint, we decided we were finished. This weekend, we will start putting up crown molding.

I had some puttering around to do this evening and it was nice enough to putter out of doors. So I did a little soil prep and planted some grass seed. Whether or not it take remains to be seen but I have done my part. Now it is up to God to remind me to water and to keep the bird away.

We were thinking of planting small shrubs or something along the walkway but ended up going for more grass.

This area here is just a corner that we haven't paid any attention to. I'm hoping this will come in nice here as well. I used a grass seed that doesn't require a lot of sun light which describes our front yard.

I'll keep tabs on it here. The important thing is that I have a post for the day I planted so I can have a reference next year when I have to plant it again.

Memorial Day Weekend Over

We started our Memorial Day with a hearty Biscuit and Gravy breakfast, the perfect breakfast for some with heart issues. We then went shopping to spend some money. 

First, we bought some ceiling paint. We were going to buy more Kilz Primer paint but the guy told us that there is not very much pigment in Kilz and we would need a lot of coats before we were happy with it.

We ended up getting three coats out of the gallon.

After buying the paint, we were off to Shopko who was having a big plant sale. We spent about $125.00 on foliage...and some steer manure...but most foliage.

We returned home and did a little work with planter boxes and then got to painting the ceiling. As I said, three coats.

We are now happy with the ceiling...or at least, as happy as we are going to be. The hump is much less noticeable and any issues we have we will hide with stenciling. 

We ended the weekend with a little burger barbecue with corn on the cob and coleslaw. 

My four days went really fast.

Memorial Day Weekend - Day C

We believe we have achieved victory over the hump. We painted today and it looks better. We need to put up at least one more coat and probably two and then we will be happy.

Besides painting, we did some stuff around the yard and I hired a neighborhood kid named Tiras to mow the lawn for me. I'm not really all that interested in having someone else mow the lawn, but this is a low income kid who needs some work experience. I'm paying him ten bucks an hour which is about how long it takes to mow. We'll see how it works out.

We had a fire last night and disposed of a lot of detritus material. We will need to have many more fires to eliminate it all. It began to rain lightly so we moved to the front porch and lit up the candles. I like the following picture and nominate it for Memorial Weekend M.L.A.A.H. Picture of the Year.

Memorial Day Weekend - Day Two

Not nearly as much was accomplished today as yesterday. I'm still on an accomplishment high from the clean Carriage House. Still we have stuff to do this weekend.

I started my day by going to church and mowing the lawn. Afterwards, I retrieved a tire I dropped off at Les Schwab the day before. It's for my new Wheel Barrel. Well...new to me.

Susan sanded and we now believe we are at a point where we are ready to paint again. This time, no Satin Sheen, just Flat Primer.

I had a piano lesson at 1:30 so that really breaks up my day to try and get stuff done. I puttered here and there as did Susan.

We had planned on a movie night and went to see the new Star Trek movie, "Into Darkness". It was okay...not as good as the last entry into the new franchise. They did bring back a lot of old themes though.

Day is done and time for bed.

Memorial Day Weekend - Day One

8:10AM: It is the start of my four day weekend. I'm going to try and be productive and my coach to push me to be productive is this post. Let's see how much I accomplish.

Of course, one could postulate that while I am sitting here tapping away, I could be elsewhere being productive. What a maroon that person would be! Tapping away is the most productive thing I will do today. The stuff I tap away about is ancillary.

I have already been productive in that I have just returned from the Lowe's Home Improvement Center where money was spent and questioned where answered.

Now I have a Carriage House to clean and organize. But first...breakfast!

9:22 AM: I just got off the phone with the guy at Lowe's. I bought a bunch of metal caps for the arbor over the deck. I came across this idea a couple of weeks ago.

We were on a tour of homes and I noticed these caps on top of the beams. I knew that was exactly what I needed for our beams. 

Okay, it's after 9 and I gotta get to work.

11:48 AM: Here are a couple of shots of my progress. More to do! Gotta go!!!

2:23 PM: I have completed my task and am generally pleased. However, having the Carriage House being clean has led me to the Garage, which is the next nightmare. I need to try and do some work on it today, but first, the Hub Tavern.

5:00 PM: I don't think I'll get to cleaning out the garage today. I'm going to try and designate a block of time over the weekend to accomplish that task. It will require some time as I need to pull EVERYTHING out and try to reorganize it.

We ended the day with a Pit Fire and some roasted hot dogs. The Christmas Tree is now gone.

The Hump of Waverly Place

Last night, I put the chandelier back in the Living Room. The light was to make the decision for us as to whether or not we would have to re-plaster.

The chandelier has spoken. Loud and clear. The picture above shows the problem. We cannot have that hump stretch across the width of the living room. It will require us to plaster that area and smooth out the hump. The plastering shall commence this evening.

The weather here has been unbelievable. The temperature has been well into the 70's for several days. It's been tremendous. I had to install the white trash window air conditioner last night in order to sleep comfortably.

In turn, I turned the gas off to the furnace this morning. I'll have to check back in these posts to see if I have noted turning off the gas and when. I think this may be the earliest.

My Hops and Grape Vines are loving the sunshine. Too bad they only are exposed to it until noonish.

I've measured 9 inches of growth in one day on the Hallertau Hops plant. The plants shown in the photograph above are (from left to right) Gewurztraminer Grape, Sterling Hops, Sauvignon Franc Grape, Hallertau Hops, and Concord Grape.

On top of all this activity, we have a bunch of sky walk to get decorated. They are really keeping us busy. That's great for our bank account but not so good for our evenings.

To Plaster or Accept

Our progress on the Living Room project is proceeding like most of our projects: Glacially!

We put up another coat of paint on the ceiling last night, hoping it was to be the last. The goal is for a velvet smooth ceiling surface and we don't quite have that. There are a couple of places that contradict that goal and just simply laugh in its face.

I'm going to re-install the chandelier tonight and then we will assess how the ceiling looks from the point of view of the light that will be in the room.

Susan says she can fix the problem areas but it requires more plastering and I've had just about all the plastering I can take. Of course, it's not me getting plastered...figuratively. I am handling the plastering with the help of my Kokanee.

Cinqo do Yoda

Today is the Fifth of May but I relate more to the Fourth of May, Star Wars Day! It's not that I'm a Stars Wars fan...I'm much more of a Trekkie. But I relate to Star Wars more than I do some Mexican Holiday that nobody knows the significance of. So, I shall refer to todays' post as Cinqo de Star Wars.

Susan ran Bloomsday today. We believe it is her 24th consecutive appearance in the annual Spring Rite of Healthy Passage. I think that is pretty impressive. She dismisses her achievement because her time is not what it used to be. But whose time is what it used to be?!

I should also mention that the weather today was spectacular. What a great day to showcase Spokaloo.

I did not run but I was the Transport Chief for Susan and Mark. I saved the table at the Onion Bar and Grill which is the traditional after run spot on Bloomsday.

We got home around 1:30 and proceeded to ensconce ourselves in inactivity. We decided to revel in the inactivity to made it last well into the evening. I am typing this at 7:26 while watching "60 Minutes". Susan is bathing and I am blogging. 

It has turned into a great day. May the Fourth be with you!

Respect the Water

No progress has been made on the living room because there is too much fun going on in the Living Room of Life, also known as the out of doors.

I took advantage of the nice weather today and put my White Water Canoe in the Spokane River after three years in dry dock. It was fabulous!

Currently, the river is running at 13,200 C.F.S., which is not really big but it's enough to make the Spokane Falls look pretty spectacular. It's big enough to make a run from Harvard Road to Mirabeau Point last just over an hour.

The stretch from Harvard to Barker Road is pretty tame, which allowed me the opportunity to get familiar with my boat again. The canoe is 12 feet long and all rocker. You cannot really propel it forward, you just spin it. It has air bags front and back...oops...forward and aft, and a saddle in the middle that I kneel over. I can put straps over my legs to secure myself in the canoe and actually become one with the canoe.

It's not a particularly comfortable position to stay in for any length of time. I got the Barker in about 20 minutes and stopped to return the circulation to my feet and legs.

From Barker to Sullivan Road is where the fun is. It's a great stretch of rapids almost the whole way. I had to stop again after the first stretch of rapids and almost fell over as I got out of the boat. My legs where totally numb from kneeling all that time. I'm going to have to work on some stretching exercises to make myself more comfy.

I'm going to do it again next week and hopefully will be able to take some pictures.

First Mow

Today was my first mowing of the year. Some parts needed to be mowed more than others. But, I broke out the mower and it fired up on the fourth pull. It still runs rough when its cold.

Later in the day, we slapped up the first coat of paint on the Living Room ceiling. That is to say, the first coat of paint on top of the primer. The paint went up well and we got it done in just a couple of hours. However, we have a couple of issues that will require more plastering. We are letting some questionable spots go and we'll just live with them. Most people won't notice them at all.

After that, we had the rest of the day to putter. I puttered in the yard. Susan puttered in the kitch.

We ended the day with a couple of pork roasts on the barbeque. I put them on the rotisserie and they came out beauty after about an hour and fifty minutes.

That made for a lovely dinner for the last night of our friend Mike's visit. He's off to Saudi Arabia for a few years of massive earning potential teaching the Sand Peoples to speak the English.

Scum Bag Patrol

During the night, some Scum Bag stopped by and stole one of the flood lights from the front yard. I didn't even know until my neighbor dropped off the staked fixture someone found in the park. So I trundled off to the store and bought a new flood light.

I know a few details about the Scum Bag but I am not willing to share them here. 

All I can tell you is the light will be back on tonight.

We painted two sky walks downtown today. It's a promotional thing for the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure next weekend. We managed to get both of them completed on Saturday. That is awesome and we are pleased with ourselves. 

Living Room Work Part 43

We were finally able to get to painting the ceiling today. There has been lots of crazy going around and we have been in the middle of it. But we buckled down today and made a serious effort to do something. 

We got a coat of primer up on the ceiling. That allowed us to evaluate the quality of the mudding and sanding we have done thus far. For the most part, we were happy. There was a particularly troublesome area where two corners of separate dry wall didn't line up very well. Susan did a great job of laying over and hiding it. But we had a lot of areas like the one shown below.

You would think this would have stood out like a festering puss laden open wound with maggots slithering about. But it didn't...until the primer went up.

So we completed the painting and after a reasonable dry time, Master Mudder Sue went to work to perform her plaster magic.

Hopefully we will get to some sanding tomorrow and then assess our next step.

We're getting closer.